B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[ki4got]

That is really unique and beautiful coloring on that hen!!

I have another question for you experienced dorking people... lol

Can dorkings be feather-sexed? Just interested for my own science-project-curiosity... I took pictures if anyone is interested, doesn't look as clear-cut as most pictures I've seen for it. Just pure curiosity! As Karen (KI4GOT) is learning, I'm very impatient to know the outcome of each chick!!! lol Any input on these? I had 3 hatch Friday afternoon and 1 overnight Friday, so the oldest 3 are a little over 2 days old, and the youngest is coming up on 2 days old tonight. Don't know which one is the youngest, I think this mama hen is going to go crazy on me if I don't stop stealing her chicks to examine them! lol Come on breast feathers...

in my experience, the pullets feather faster than the cockerels... so 2& 3 would be pullets 1 & 4 cockerels. same as i'm guessing by the head markings/coloration.

 

[Sazbaby]

in my experience, the pullets feather faster than the cockerels... so 2& 3 would be pullets 1 & 4 cockerels. same as i'm guessing by the head markings/coloration.

That makes sense to me too, just the rate of feathering rather than the 1 row vs 2 row theory... will be interesting to see what these end up being in a few weeks, I'm hoping I will still be able to distinguish by heads at the time their breast feathers start coming in. Good thing I've only got 4 to keep track of, otherwise I might look a little obsessed...

 

[ki4got]

Quote: small zip ties work well for temporary leg bands... band the girls (or boys) and see what happens. lowes carries them in assorted colors too.

 

[pysankigirl]

very pretty... but most chicken mutations affect primarily the red or black pigments, not both. so i'd say she's got some sort of pheomelanin restrictor (dilute, champagne blond, inhibitor of gold are the 3 primary ones seen) and also blue, which is a pheomelanin restrictor. if she was a cross, i'm guessing dilute over the others, since it's the only one that's dominant (and i've seen in my own dorkings), and blue is also an incompletely dominant mutation, where blue is the heterozygous form and splash is the homozygous form.

she's pretty, and unusual, but i'm guessing she'll change colors slightly as she matures.

so a homozygous dilute homozygous blue? so if I bred her to a "colored looking" male from Craig (assuming homozygous dilute makes chicken look colored over dark red?), I would get half blue half black chicks for the undercoat, but the dilute...25% would be almost silvery and 50% would be golden and 25% would be normal red hackles?

is that how it would work?

if so, I guess I would get 25% chicks with this coloration with that combo...if I am doing the math right... but if I mated her to a silvery hackled...no, still 25% ...my poor brain...

 

[Sazbaby]

small zip ties work well for temporary leg bands... band the girls (or boys) and see what happens. lowes carries them in assorted colors too.

I was hoping I'd be able to find something cheap like that, the real leg bands add up quickly! Might have to find some zip ties so I won't doubt my memory...

 

[Rockashelle]

I was hoping I'd be able to find something cheap like that, the real leg bands add up quickly!  Might have to find some zip ties so I won't doubt my memory...

I use zip ties as well but haven't with a broody mama. Just a concern, is your broody very experienced? My concern is that she may peck at the color leg bands as some of the other chicks do and will. Ki4got, have you had banded chicks under a broody mama? I would hate for accidental injuries to happen. I'm not experienced in this department just my first initial thought.

 

[dalalune]

What is Spartan if I may ask?

"Spartan" - very little frills; just an open wire coop with enough cover to protect the feed and roost (sorta); no light or heat....

 

[ki4got]

Quote: no, heterozygous... if she's a mixture of 2 different strains the mutations would have to be dominant to both show on her... but doubtful it came from both parents.

no guessing what she carries under the dilute and blue genes, but half would carry the blue, half would carry the dilute, other than that, no way to know. whether they'd carry BOTH at the same time would be a crap shoot.

 

[pysankigirl]

no, heterozygous... if she's a mixture of 2 different strains the mutations would have to be dominant to both show on her... but doubtful it came from both parents.

no guessing what she carries under the dilute and blue genes, but half would carry the blue, half would carry the dilute, other than that, no way to know. whether they'd carry BOTH at the same time would be a crap shoot.

oh, gosh...I meant Heterozygous. my poor brain!

 

[pysankigirl]

no, heterozygous... if she's a mixture of 2 different strains the mutations would have to be dominant to both show on her... but doubtful it came from both parents.

no guessing what she carries under the dilute and blue genes, but half would carry the blue, half would carry the dilute, other than that, no way to know. whether they'd carry BOTH at the same time would be a crap shoot.

I wanted to make sure it couldn’t also be the silvering gene partially expressing on the female? Can this happen? I am trying to remember. The silver gene makes my head hurt sometimes. I know if you mate a red Rooster with a silver grey hen it is a sexlinked combination with the males coming out partially diluted, (so they would be S/s and LOOK colored but not breed true) But the girls come out red. How does that happen? They only get their one gene from the male? Does the red ever get diluted at all in the female from the sex-linked gene?

So f there is no possibility of the red diluting at all on a female with the sex-linked silver gene…then this would have to be a dilution gene, not a sex-linked silver gene?

Does the dilute gene act like the BBS gene?

So if is she Heterozygous for both the Dilute and the Blue gene (and I am assuming also a melanized gene because there is so much blue and only a little of the strawberry around the edges) then even if I could find a boy with exactly her same coloration, it would be the BBS 25%/50%/25% thing compounded by the dilute red 25%/50%/25% thing right? So only 50% of 50% would end up with both of the half dilutions? So 25% blue/Strawberry? (Is the melanizing gene also one that partially expresses? that would just make my head hurt so am going to ignore that for now)



black undercoat

blue undercoat

blue undercoat

Splash undercoat
Red

Black/red

Blue/red

Blue/red

Splash/red
Strawberry

Black/Strawberry

Blue/strawberry

Blue/strawberry

Splash/strawberry
Strawberry

Black/Strawberry

Blue/strawberry

Blue/strawberry

Splash/strawberry
Cream

Black/cream

Blue/cream

Blue/cream

Splash/cream

And presumably the black/cream is what we would call “colored” & that would breed true? Or am I seeing that wrong? so I would also make progress towards a colored project?

The trick to both the Blue/strawberry and the Black/cream is to find a boy with the DILUTING gene, not a single copy of the sex-linked silver which would express similarly in males. ALTHOUGH… the likelihood of getting the Blue/strawberry is still 25% if I put her with a black/red which I think I have one of. (if it works the same as the BBS gene.) And then if I bred a black/strawberry or blue/strawberry back to her from this mating, I would KNOW that it was the dilution gene in play, not the sex-linked silver.
Black/red to Blue/strawberry



black undercoat

blue undercoat
Red

Black/red

Blue/red
Strawberry

Black/Strawberry

Blue/strawberry

Then mother(blue/strawberry) to son(black/strawberry):



black undercoat

blue undercoat
Red

Black/red

Blue/red
Strawberry

Black/Strawberry

Blue/strawberry
Strawberry

Black/Strawberry

Blue/strawberry
Cream

Black/cream

Blue/cream

It would take two generations but I have time… And I would have a lot of the blue/strawberry running around which I don’t mind at all! Have I screwed something up here, or are my assumptions in the right ballpark?

But then once I had the black/cream coloreds they would all be really related to each other…I would need to outcross? That is another headache. I’d have to do this twice to get unrelated coloreds to mate together.

the other option I suppose is that the dilute is a dominant gene? if that is the case it will be harder to isolate but the birds will look colored more often (all the creams would look strawberry and black/strawberry is "colored" but you'd have a 2/3 chance that the breeder was heterozygous and therefore would spawn a red on occasion)

need to find out what dilute is.